


hideout

by nemesis (naanobytes)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Hurt, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Nightmares, i proofread this once and decided to post oops, i really need to work on that but also? i’m tired, i think that’s about all, miklan’s a jerk as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22796917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naanobytes/pseuds/nemesis
Summary: Damn crests. They’d been calling people worthless since the dawn of time, reducing them to the value of something that they couldn’t control, and now here they were, taking his brother away from him.—alternate title: noo ahah don’t turn into a black beast you’re my brother
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	hideout

**Author's Note:**

> hellooo!! this is actually one of the first fics i started writing for fire emblem- i just stopped one night near the very end and picked it up again like half an hour ago and finished it all up! 
> 
> i want to make a note of this before i start- in this, sylvain and ashe are their academy ages, which is kind of weird for relationships. i designed this fic so that ashe has some (for now, while they’re young) one-sided feelings, but if you want, this could also be just read as gen? i marked it m/m anyway since that’s what it is but. go ahead and think of them as homies if that makes you happier! 
> 
> tw//: there’s a very slightly graphic description and stuff about nightmares. i don’t think it’s too bad at all, but that’s just me, so i figured it’s best warned about
> 
> anyway, without further ado, i hope you enjoy my lil drabble!

He could hardly feel the ground beneath him as he flew forward. Every corner he took revealed another corridor of dark stone identical to the last, every moment he spent hyper-aware of the person running behind him, every pant of exertion was punctuated by fear and the threat of tears spilling over his cheeks. 

His legs gave out underneath him, his breath coming in harsh pants as he retched on the floor- as a silhouette flickered in the wan candlelight, and a familiar figure walked around the corner and out of the shadows. Between his hands he span a weapon- a long grey rod studded with what looked like long teeth, at the end a spearhead with a glimmering stone in the lower centre. 

Milkan’s smile was  _ crazed _ as he stared down his younger brother, and positioned the lance’s point at his neck. His lips moved around words that Sylvain couldn’t hear, his lips stretching over his face and showing off his teeth in a way that was anything but natural. Then, his brother’s body gave a jerk, and the stone in the lance glowed. 

He knew what was coming. He needed to leave- he couldn’t do this again, couldn’t watch this happen  _ again _ , powerless to do anything but keep his eyes glued to the scene and bear witness as his brother transformed into a monster beyond recognition. 

His limbs froze up, eyes widening in horror, as Miklan’s body convulsed violently, and the lance’s stone began to ooze a purple substance. Tendrils of evil crept up the bandit leader’s arms, up past his shoulders, covering his face with their darkness, silencing his yells of pain. His body grew larger, hands extending into terrible claws, face stretching into something dragon-like. 

His stomach churned with sickness as the black beast that used to be his brother reared back its head and let out a horrible roar- a roar that shook the very walls around them, causing loose rock to fall from the ceiling over their heads. Sylvain couldn’t even turn to empty the contents of his stomach as the black beast’s eyes shifted to him, and it stood up on its hind legs, raising one limb. All he saw before he closed his eyes in preparation for the impact was those horrible claws headed right for his face.

—

He shot awake, his entire upper body lifting off of the bed he was in, forcing him into a sitting position. Cold sweat blanketed his forehead, and his pants echoed in the dead quiet of night, just as they had against the walls of that horrible stone prison. However, the room was small and made of wood, and underneath him was not hard floor, but soft linen sheets. He placed a hand on his forehead and let out a small groan, unaware of anything about his surroundings (other than that they weren’t those of that awful tower) in lieu of his nightmare.

It was the same one- almost every night since Miklan had transformed into that beast. So much surrounding the event was still shrouded in mystery, so much that he shouldn’t have even been able to fathom it, but it was regardless so vivid in his mind that he was almost unable to dream of anything else. Had Miklan transformed on purpose? Was it the lance’s power? Were all of the relics corrupted, or just that one? Or was it simply that Miklan had never bore a crest? He knew the latter was true- after all, his family line had always been able to wield it fine, so long as they were marked.

Damn crests. They’d been calling people worthless since the dawn of time, reducing them to the value of something that they couldn’t control, and now here they were, taking his brother away from him. 

Of course, he’d never been close with Miklan ever since they were kids- not by any stretch of the imagination. After his brother had been revealed to be crestless, and was disinherited in favour of Sylvain, gone were the happy times where the two of them had played together as young boys- play sessions, turned murder attempts, until to add insult to injury, he was disowned by house Gautier and became an outcast. 

Miklan was rotten down to his core. Sylvain knew that better than anyone else. In fact, the bastard had got what was coming to him with his death. But something in him couldn’t help but think that Miklan might not have turned out the way he did, had Sylvain not been born with the crest that he so coveted. 

The thought came unbidden into his mind- a whisper of doubt infecting his already-dangerous thoughts. If Miklan had inherited the crest instead of him, would Sylvain have turned out the same? Driven to such envy, such resentment, that he was willing to murder his brother? Or would his fate have been entirely different? 

He lifted one arm to wipe his sleeve at his eyes in a very un-noble-like fashion, letting out a shaky exhale into the cool, dark air of the room. Slowly, he unfurled his fingers from where his fists had been clenching around nothing, and loosely clasped his hands together. Sleep tugged at his eyelids, but fear kept them open wide. He couldn’t bear to see it again. 

“Sylvain?”

He nearly screamed at the soft voice, but managed to repress it, instead letting out a small 

gasp and recoiling into the blankets. A candle’s quiet light cropped up in the sea of darkness around him, and then, mint green eyes hung over his own, round with concern. The candlelight highlighted the silver hair of the younger boy in front of him, its silhouette shifting around his face like quicksilver. 

Right.  _ That’s  _ why the walls around him weren’t stone. He wasn’t in his own dorm- he’d come to Ashe’s, after a particularly vicious woman he’d tried to beguile had started a manhunt for him. Ashe had been scared for his own life, and had turned Sylvain away initially, but with a little bit of coercing on Sylvain’s part, Ashe had been closing the door behind the two of them. He’d sat down on Ashe’s bed and began to talk, and then gotten too comfy to leave. He must have drifted off somewhere in the process. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, obviously- camping out in Ashe’s room and sleeping overnight, that was- but it was the first time that he’d had a nightmare in the presence of his younger friend. 

Then, he realised how awful he must look right now. Sylvain prided himself on his appearance, as was likely obvious, and having it less than gorgeous was less than stellar. His hair was probably a mess, and his eyes must’ve had the  _ worst  _ bags, and goddess, that was not what he wanted to look like in front of  _ anyone _ . Part of him wanted to shrink into the blankets on Ashe’s bed and ignore him, but not only was that cowardly, it would he kind of hard to ignore Ashe while curled up in  _ his  _ bed.

“Yeah?” he murmured, wincing at how hoarse his voice came out, cracking slightly with the threat of a quiet sob. Quickly, he cleared his throat and tried again, relieved when his tone shifted, sounding a  _ little  _ more like himself. “What is it?”

Ashe didn’t say anything immediately, his eyes flicking to the side so that they didn’t meet Sylvain’s. “I just,” he started hesitantly, his voice as soft as the shadow he cast on the carpet, “after Lonato died, I had a lot of nightmares. I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, after seeing his face as he was struck down, looping infinitely...” The silver-haired boy visibly shivered, and then shyly moved his gaze back. “You know that already, of course. You were there through most of my nightmares, and… talking to you helped me, then. Now that Miklan’s dead, I wondered if maybe I’d be able to return the favour, is all.” 

Sylvain wasn’t at all surprised that Ashe was able to detect the fact that he’d just woken up after a nightmare. After all, he spoke true- after Lonato’s death, Ashe had been constantly plagued by nightmares, and Sylvain had almost always been there for him during them. The boy knew quite well what a nightmare looked and felt like, so it came as no shock that he could see it painted on Sylvain’s face. He was tempted to nod, let Ashe freely do whatever he imagined would help calm him down, but part of him also objected quite fiercely to that notion. After all, Sylvain was a complete and utter mess, and he knew it- what right did he have to bring someone as pure and good as Ashe into it all? He felt guilty for even  _ having  _ the nightmare in Ashe’s presence, despite the knowledge that he wasn’t exactly able to control it.

His hands fisted in the blankets, fingers twisting into the soft fabric and holding it tightly, like a lifeline. However, within moments, a pair of different fingers- slender and warm- were sliding past his own, knitting them together and forcing Sylvain to let go. His eyes traced down the fingers, up the arm, across the shoulder, up the neck, quiet and slow, until he stared right at Ashe’s closed eyes.

A rare look of concentration morphed his face, brows furrowed just slightly as he softly rubbed the pads of his fingers across Sylvain’s knuckles, and squeezed their interlocked fingers tighter together. He could only stare at said hands as the silver-haired boy mouthed words that he himself couldn’t hear, marvelling at the way that Ashe’s lithe fingers fit quite perfectly between his own. Something in his heart gave a small jolt, at both the sight and the realisation of the sensation of their palms pressing together. 

“It’s not your fault,” Ashe murmured suddenly, causing Sylvain’s head to snap up and stare directly back at him. His eyes were open just slightly, downcast- clearly looking at their entwined hands. 

“Pardon?” Sylvain managed to croak out. Surely Ashe couldn’t know- couldn’t understand how he felt? Ashe couldn’t have ever experienced what he was feeling. What he must have felt when Lonato was killed at the hands of the Church of Seiros must be different. 

Ashe suddenly raised his face, eyes meeting those of the redhead in front of him. “You feel guilty, right? You were born with a crest, and he wasn’t. Even though you had no choice, you must feel like it’s your fault that your brother took the relic, and transformed into that beast.” He gave a small hum, a little smile appearing on his face, hardly visible in the flickering light of the candle set between them. 

Sylvain was dumbstruck. He hadn’t been surprised that Ashe had been able to detect his nightmare- after all, not only had he experienced them himself, Ashe had the sharp eyes of a thief, perfect for split-second appraisal. However, to have his feelings so barely laid out on the floor, like a set of envelopes to examine and pick at, all in the eyes of a young boy who looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly- well, it was definitely strange, to say the least.

“Yeah,” he found himself murmuring before he could stop it, his fingers tightening around Ashe’s. “Yeah,” he repeated, his voice cracking slightly in the middle. Ashe brought their clasped hands up to his forehead and pressed it against Syvain’s, letting out a small breath that tickled the skin there.

“It’s okay. I’m here for you.”

Now, normally, Sylvain would’ve laughed it off. If either of them was going to be there for the other, it would be Sylvain for Ashe, and not the other way around, right? After all,  _ he  _ was the one that stood tall, paraded his way around the monastery grounds like they belonged to him, had women and men alike fall down at his feet for a chance to be his. Ashe wasn’t anything like that- he was timid, and didn’t spend a lot of time around people outside of the Blue Lions house, unlike many other students. Despite his earnest personality, his circle of friends was small. 

But then again, Earnest wasn’t all he was. Ashe was  _ strong,  _ Sylvain realised with a start, feeling Ashe’s warm breaths ghost across his cool hands. His parents had died. He’d been forced to turn to thievery from a young age. The first man to show him kindness was killed in front of him, and prior to that, his brother was executed, now leaving him alone and providing for children once again. 

A spike of guilt pierced his heart. Where did  _ he _ get off, so shaken over memories that couldn’t hold a candle to the experiences of others? Sylvain’s brother had tried to kill him, but the whole  _ world  _ had tried to kill people like Ashe- physically, emotionally, and mentally. A starving young boy, not even ten years old, stealing food and valuables from people in the street just to feed him and his younger siblings. Rationing out the smallest coins, to try and afford  _ just  _ enough food that he wouldn’t need to steal anymore. 

Sylvain had been born to a noble family- had always had more money than he could fathom, and that was still true. He had a father and a mother who cared about him, despite the fact that his brother didn’t, and he never went to sleep hungry or uncomfortable, tucked underneath the soft covers of his bed. 

Ashe hadn’t had any of that- or maybe he had, once, but it was taken away from him.  _ He  _ hadn’t had a mother and father who cared about him. He went to bed hungry and uncomfortable, after feeding everything that he found to his siblings and holding them while they slept on the streets. And still, Ashe moved on- put one foot in front of the other, until he made it to his destination, and then continued, and  _ that  _ was real strength.

So, Sylvain didn’t laugh. He didn’t deserve Ashe’s company, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to accept it anyway. 

He leaned forward, lowering their hands enough that he could press his forehead to Ashe’s. A small sigh passed his parted lips, and the boy opposite him squeezed his fingers soothingly. “Thank you,” he whispered. 

Ashe didn’t respond, for a while. Sylvain felt himself begin to calm, the beating in his chest slowing to a somewhat-regular rhythm, breathing in, out, at a pace in time with Ashe’s wiry archer’s fingers rubbing softly over his knuckles. 

He felt everything else in pieces- Ashe coercing him into a lying position, tucking the single thin blanket back over his body, sitting down on the floor with a hardly-audible  _ thud _ . He was gentle the entire time, careful with Sylvain as if he was porcelain- and in his haze, surrounded by a warmth that he so rarely felt, he couldn’t bring himself to care about it.

There was a soft press of lips against the back of his hand as Sylvain felt his eyes relax, his breathing even, as he slipped into sleep. 

He still saw Miklan, yes, but Ashe was there too- and as always, he made everything ever the more pleasant. 

**Author's Note:**

> aahhhh i hope you liked it! providing sylvashe content for us starved little babies is my one goal. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading!! come yell at fe3h at me on my tumblr, @cheeky-nan! ☺️


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